


all i want to do (right now)

by selinipainter



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Here Be Some Angst, M/M, What Was I Thinking?, but hey it is coherent and i sat on this long enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 10:52:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10569807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selinipainter/pseuds/selinipainter
Summary: Archie has always been a little too dense. Jughead has always been a little too much a martyr. It worked, until it didn't.But Archie also realises his mistakes eventually, and he will be damned if he lets Jughead go without a fight.aka when the boys are sad and a little gay but mostly sad





	

Here’s the thing, Archie was so used to looking at Jughead that he forgot to see him. Does that even make sense?

He knows it does not. Not until it happens, not until months passed and he did not realise his best friend had been homeless since before summer. Not until weeks and weeks went by, and he never realises Jelly was gone with Mrs Jones. Not until days passed before he realises Jughead had hid so much, and he could have helped if he only had asked. If only he bothered seeing Jughead, instead of looking at him.

One lucky meeting, one question and that was all it took.  That was all.

Archie knows he has been a bad friend for weeks now, he just did not realise exactly how horrible he has been as a friend.

He stops pumping the mattress, looks up at Jughead. Watches the curve of his back, the thin fingers around his guitar. Watches the way his clothes fit a little looser, the way his skin looks a little too pale. The hunch of his shoulders, drawing inwards.

Watches how he tried to hide even in plain sight, as if –

As if he is nothing but trouble, nothing but a problem for Archie to fix. Nothing except an old friend who is not wanted, not here, not at home. Not anywhere. There is an odd twisting pain around Archie’s chest, something that digs deeper than the guilt over Geraldine.

“Hey, Jug,” he says softly. Jughead stops strumming, but does not look up at him.

 

 

(Jughead does not know what to do in this house.

There’s a reason he never really approached Archie to tell him about… things. If there’s one thing he hopes to keep safe, it is this house with all the childhood memories and nothing of the past few months. Sleepovers and pie fights, learning to ride a bike and patching up broken vases. Learning to belong somewhere happy, somewhere safe without walking on eggshells.

There’s a house in a trailer park, a home meant for four. It is a home drowning in bottles, drowning in loneliness, drowning in dead ends and little else. It’s not home for him, not anymore. Instead, Archie’s place has been the closest promise of home for Jughead.

Sometimes, when the cabin felt too small during the summer nights, he would find his way to the Andrews house. He would sit outside till dawn was nearly breaking, because even the darkest seas need lighthouses for ships to steer to.

Jughead did not want to touch that, ever. He still does not want to, but wishes may as well be horses. They also never account for the inexorable pull of Archie, like the way plants always tilt to the sun.)

 

 

“Are you ok, Jug?” Archie asks, despite knowing otherwise. Archie does not know where else to begin though, so used to Jughead being the steady constant. This is another mistake that he owns up to, the way that he is so out of step with Jughead when before, he never needed to ask questions like these.

Jughead swallows once, twice, three times. His fingers go white around the guitar. If it were anyone else, he would expect them to gear up to use the guitar as a club.

He pushes up from the floor and goes to him. He leans his weight on Jughead’s knees.

“Hey, hey, look at me, Juggie. You – you don’t have to be ok, don’t have to talk to me. But Jug, you can tell me whenever. Or Betty, Ronnie. You aren’t alone, ok and you will always have me,” Archie says, biting his lip. He holds Jughead’s thin wrists, trying to anchor him.

_Who cares if Jughead ended up drowning, too?_

Archie remembers Jug’s always been gentler in a way, not in his words, not in his behaviour. But it is the way he holds himself, not wanting to throw his burden onto his friends. Believing in his dad, even when he must work against himself to do it. There’s a reason why Jughead’s so good with words, with telling stories even when they were children.

Jughead knows how to tell stories, so good at telling them even to himself but he always fails at telling his own. Up until last summer, Archie had been there to pick up that slack, to fill in the blanks.

And then, Archie left him with nothing but silence and a last minute _something came up sry jug cant make it fr the trip_. It was so last minute, he sent it only a few hours before he was supposed to meet Jughead, caught up in Geraldine’s invitation to spend the weekend with her. He never got a reply, too caught up to be bothered by that silence.

Despite all of that, he tried to help Archie with Betty, tried to pull Archie away from Geraldine. When that failed, Jughead listened to him despite everything. He had been _there_ for Archie. Archie could not say the same about himself.

Archie meets his eyes. He could not let him go, not until Jughead understands, “I am sorry, man. Sorry for being a shitty friend, sorry for being not there for you all summer. And for. For everything.”

His face is blank, and Archie wondered if it is enough, if it ever _will_ be enough.

Jughead blinks and then, turns his palms up, circling Archie’s wrists in return. The guitar’s weight is awkward between the two of them, but he does not want to let go of Jughead. There’s a dead boy, long before his time. There’s a girl whose heart he broke, a father who can’t look him in the eyes some morning.

There’s so much pain and anger in this town, and if he can take some of it from Jughead, it would be enough. He would have done _enough_.

“Arch, you were never shitty. Forgetful, perhaps a little too deaf. But you were there in the end,” he replies and tries to smile. Archie looks at him, steadily, mapping the curve of his smile.

It has not changed much, still familiar. Still Jughead, in all the ways that matters. But Jughead had to try to make it look the same, try so hard but Archie knows better.

“In the end, but not enough, Jug. All I want is for you to be ok. And I can’t ever make it up to you that you weren’t,” he says, trying to swallow around the lump in his throat. Jughead smiles more honestly, more sadly. He twists his hands again, till Archie released him and removes the guitar from his lap. Archie sits beside him when he pats the bed, pressed shoulder to hip.

Jughead mumbles, “I am fine, Arch. Jus–”

Archie sighs, did Jughead really expect him to believe that, honestly.

“I am. Or I’ll be. And I am not going to talk to Betty or anyone else, just you. But Arch, I just. Just want to it to stop.”

 

 

(Jughead can’t bring himself to say anything more. Stop being lonely, stop being sad all the fucking time. Stop being tired. And he wants that more than anything else. He does not know what it is like anymore, to live without that edge of exhaustion and weariness. Tired of being alone, tired of feeling things for people who will never feel the same. Tired of missing his mum, Jelly, his dad. Archie.

Tired of everything, and the world. Tired of loving Archie, in so many ways. But not in normal ways, normal teenage ways where there’s hormones and sex.  Tired of trying to love Betty, in lieu of Archie. He tries there, tries being normal. Tries enjoying himself, tries being interested in things other than kissing. He fails.

Of missing the weight of Archie’s trust, the weight of Jelly’s little body clambering up him on weekends. Tired of wanting more from Archie, tired of wanting his dad to make everything better.  Tired of 3 hours of sleep a day, of the mysteries of this town.

But he can never be tired of Archie. No matter how much he wants to be, some days.)

 

 

Archie does not know what to say, instead he presses closer to Jughead. He throws an arm around him, and stares out the window. The pain flares, twisting all over again. He thinks about the first week of summer, before Geraldine, before July fourth. Before everything.

He thinks how Jughead laughed at his travel plans, full bellied and head thrown back. He laughed at the stupid roadside attractions that he said they should visit like a giant ball of yarn, a giant time capsule and a giant replica of a burger. He never told Jughead that the giant burger was the first one to make the list, when he started it.

The list is still crumpled in the bottom of Archie’s drawers.

He sighs, and leans against Archie. Jughead drops his head on his shoulders, and it is a familiar weight that Archie can’t remember missing until he does in that moment. He waits.

“I don’t want to stop believing in him, you know. He can get better, he will. He never hit me, Arch, I swear. But I miss him, and mum, and Jelly. And I can’t go home, I can’t, not when everything reminds me of being nothing, and being a failure, not stopping him, not stopping mum from leaving, not being enough for him and I want it to stop,” Jughead’s breathing heaves, stutters over and over.

There is something crawling in his throat, digging claws in and Archie has never seen Jughead fall apart. Not like this, and it’s so ugly because it hurts so much to witness it. Who cares if Jughead drowned with FP? Who cares about a boy raised in a broken family, on the wrong side of town? Who cares if there was a boy alone, and tired, lost at sea? Who cares, right?

He does, even when he had forgotten it for a time. He always would, he swears.  He tightens his grip on Jughead, glad that the way Jughead sits means he could not see Archie’s eyes.

“You aren’t,” Archie stops. There is no way to tell his best friend all of it, no way to really give him enough that would make it all better. There is no way he could give Jughead the answers he needs, but he tries all the same.

“You are always going to be enough for me, Jug. Always. And you aren’t. You are not nothing, you are always going to be something to me,” Archie says, biting back that Jughead was everything. He does not want to know where _that_ came from.

“No matter what you think, we are always going to want you around ok? Betty wants you to be her partner in crime, Ronnie and Kevin want your sardonic humour and I want my best friend. And of course, Pops would want his best customer, who else gives him the most business?”

Jughead laughs a little at that, and Archie feels the clawing let up. There is so much more he wants to say, but they have time. They were going to have the time to discuss this, over many burgers and many nights. Archie would damn well make sure it.

For the night though, he is not going to leave Jughead alone. He turns, flops back on the bed and tugs at Jughead’s hand to drag him down. Jughead looks down at him, smiling and Archie thinks in that moment, he might have stopped seeing his best friend despite looking at him for so long. Jughead has not though, and Archie likes that idea. He likes it _a lot_.

“Come on, Juggy. It’s way past bed time for all the little boys.”

“Just ‘cause you bulked up, it doesn’t mean that I am ever going to be smaller than you,” Jughead laughs, toeing off his shoes. He removes his shirt, leaving a t-shirt and crawls up to his side. Jughead smells of rain, and Archie’s soap. It’s familiar and comforting in that fact.

“Juggie, ol’ pal, my buddy, that’s exactly what it means. The beanie,” Archie snatches it off, “might give you some extra height but that is never going to compete with all of this.” Archie flexes his arms.

He laughs, when Jughead pushes him off the bed in revenge. He laughs, as he climbs back up and kicks at Jughead’s feet, sprawled all over his bed just like when they were kids. They tug at the sheets until it settles. He faces Jughead’s back, memorises the curve of his neck and the curls in his hair. Archie slings an arm around his waist.

Archie’s last thought is he would deal with the air mattress for good, later in the morning

 

 

(Jughead falls asleep after Archie. Falls asleep counting the stars outside the window, falls asleep in time to Archie’s breathing. He falls asleep, thinking about the rhythm of Archie’s heart and safe in the fit of Archie’s arm around him.)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends!
> 
> This fic was in the works for a month plus. And my lovely beta, Jasmine really gave me a lot of support and feedback in developing it.
> 
> Primarily because I have not written in _ages_ due to uni and life. I really hope you enjoy it! And the song title is from Troye Sivan's Talk Me Down, which tbh is the exactly right song to fit the mood of this story.
> 
> Thank you! And any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.


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